The Iraq war has been called the "first YouTube war" because soldier-made representations have been extensively circulated and seen on YouTube. "If you want to see the horror of war, you do not need to look far. There are sites aplenty showing the carnage, and much of the material is filmed, edited and uploaded by soldiers recording their own experiences."[cit]

Everyday people have long made home movies about their daily lives. Home movie scholarship looks seriously at this noncommercial production as a resource for academic historiography, allowing us rare access to a people's-eye view of trauma, memory, family, and nation. YouTube scholars address how the nature of the private (or domestic) has changed online.

Dr. Strangelove reports on his blog: "Home video is far and away the most popular content posted online, shared by 62% of video uploaders."[cit]